There's been incredible diversity in the range of video games graphics presented to us over the years, but developers are still managing to find new ways to surprise us.
Attack of the giant...Gromits?
Wreck-it Ralph, a delight for the eyes!
While everyone is busy hating on Disney for adopting and extending the Star Wars saga, let’s take a moment to remember that Disney do indeed make some seriously visually impressive motion pictures. Their latest endeavour ‘Wreck it Ralph’, is no exception. CTO Andy Hendrickson spoke to Animation World Network about the film…
'Beauty is Embarrassing' serves to Inspire.
When you're just having one of those days in front of your computer, it's always good to take a step back, and gain some perspective. Get some inspiration!
Wacom Bamboo—Manga-style!
Konnichiwa manga fans!
Capitalising on our ever-growing fascintation in J-Culture, Wacom have unweiled their latest Manga edition of its Pen & Touch tablet, designed for illustrators to easily create Japanese-style comics. The tablet comes teamed with Smith Micro's acclaimed Manga Studio Debut 4 and Anime Studio Debut 8.
Konnichiwa manga fans!
Capitalising on our ever-growing fascintation in J-Culture, Wacom have unveiled a special Manga edition of its Pen & Touch tablet, designed for illustrators to whip up Japanese comicbook-style characters and scenes with ease. The tablet comes teamed with Smith Micro's acclaimed Manga Studio Debut 4 and Anime Studio Debut 8—you can import existing drawings and pictures to Anime Studio, automatically converting them into vector graphics, which you can then animate...Genius!
The Future Face of Game Graphics: Janimation's VFX Tech Demo
Take a look at the future of video game graphics in this demo, in which Janimation shows off their amazing new engine for facial animations.
NYCC 2012
We are less than a month away from New York Comic Con, “the East Coast's biggest and most exciting popular culture convention”, an event that attracts fans of film/TV/graphic novel (and the rest!) in their hoards, last year’s convention drawing 105,000 punters!
Winning in Westeros
As you can tell from the numerous blog posts, we here at Escape are pretty big fans of HBO’s Game Of Thrones and I can honestly say that if there were a parade I would be leading it.
Partysaurus Rex!
Like many other film fans, my journey with Pixar’s original animation classic Toy Story, has been an emotional one. From the age of 5 I’ve watched every instalment of the Toy Story trilogy, each time within a week of its release at the cinema, even the third, which as a 20 year old I saw in 3D, twice.
Robocop-out?
Pictures surfaced yesterday from the set of the Robocop remake, to be released in August 2013 - "very exciting!" I hear you say. Well for most of us it is!
An overwhelming amount of unhappy Tweeters, Facebookers and bloggers alike, took to their keyboards over the weekend - unleashing a tirade of distain on the new costume design, placing it firmly in the shadows of the iconic suit from the original 1987 film.
Weird Wins!
With the US release of Paranorman last month (UK release 14th September), sporting giants Nike have released a one of a kind edition of their synonymous, ‘foamposite’ sports trainer. Only 800 of these Paranorman themed pumps were made and get this - they could only be won by weirdos.
Dragons are cool, right?
In pursuit of some new blog material, I managed to stumble across this über cool, VFX heavy advertisement. For the most extravagant collection of watches I think I’ve ever seen. And as far as product shots go, this one is a pretty elaborate example.
Konami announce plans for Metal Gear Solid Movie
If you, like me, were the owner of a PS1 back in the late 90’s, (or as we called it back then, simply ‘the Playstation’) there’s quite a high chance you would have owned stealth action game ‘Metal Gear Solid’, the successor to Konami’s MSX2 tactical action espionage game, ‘Metal Gear’, which this week celebrated its 25th anniversary.
The Decisive Moment Winners Announced
We announced back in May that the Chaos Group in association with CG Society, NVidia, MAXON and BOXX would be running the “Decisive Moment” competition. The challenge was to create a single image, using any application and V-Ray to render, that tells a decisive moment in time.
Rock on...another escapee success!
Adam Esat explains, that like many video games industry professionals, the first seeds of inspiration were sewn as a child, playing the likes of The Legend of Zelda, Metal Gear Solid and Pokémon.
We soon found out that like the protagonists of his childhood inspirations, Adam had embarked on a pretty exciting journey of his own.
We caught up with this escapee in the wake of a recent poll from ‘develop online’, indicating Travellers’ Tales (His employers, and main producers of games under the Lego franchise) to be the number one UK game developer.
Adam explains that although he knew he wanted to enter he world of gaming, he didn’t quite have a clear cut vision so early on, and it took him three years at university to make a decision as to what he wanted to specialise in.
‘I loved 3D modelling most of all, which I dedicated my efforts to from then on.’
From here the foundations were set, and Adam could start stacking the building the blocks of his career. (If you’ll excuse the pun) Speaking of his time with us, he acknowledges the premium level of teaching and positive learning environment that Escape Studios has to offer.
‘The quality of the tutoring is what I consider to be world class; it truly was a creatively charged, collaborative place to study, which frankly made me strive to improve myself even more’
As with all of our success stories though, our resources are matched, if not trumped by the infallible commitment of our students, and it took Adam four patient months of meticulous alterations to his show reel before he felt it ready for job applications. These were four months though, that surely pale into insignificance now…
‘Since then I've been happily employed at TT, whilst also pursuing my personal work in my free time’
We asked Adam to dispatch some industry wisdom for our students and any potential VFX artists out there who may be reading his success story
I would say the most important thing is decide exactly what you want to do within the games industry, and focus on it, the key is to specialise. Work as much as you can on creating an awesome showreel targeted at the area you wish to specialise, It's incredibly competitive out there and if you want to succeed, you need to work hard. Show your prospective employer that you're the right person for the job and most of all that you want it more than anyone else.
Adam knows not what the future holds, as the industry is always evolving. But with a work ethic and skillset like his, we can be sure that this escapee has a very bright future.
Adam Esat explains, that like many other video games industry professionals, his first source of inspiration came as a child, playing the likes of The Legend of Zelda, Metal Gear Solid and Pokémon.
Disney Research showcases facial-capture technology at SIGGRAPH
So as many of you will know, SIGGRAPH was in full swing last week, where the nerdy world of CGI congregate in LA to share innovations, lectures and an incredible amount of boasting. SIGGRAPH is the Official Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, where leading personnel and companies in the CGI world get together and share what's been going on for them in the past and will be in the future.
Ted is Bear-illiant!
Ted, the loveable (if not a tad feckless) bundle of fuzz waddled onto our cinema screens last week, and I was first in line to watch his hilarious shenanigans—voiced by the film's writer and director, Seth MacFarlane.
Patching Up ZBrush
Last week it was announced that Pixologic released ZBrush 4R4, a free upgrade that is available for current registered license holders. But it seems that the love from Pixologic does not end there...less than two weeks after the release of 4R4, ZBrush has a patch upgrade.
IKinema LiveAction
SIGGRAPH is going to be bursting at the seams with new releases, with UK based IKinema set to unveil IKinema LiveAction at the LA conference next week.
How A Concept Becomes A Reality
When you see different characters on screen you often wonder where the ideas, or ‘concepts’, for these characters first came from. We can answer that question for you, they're called concept artists.
